New admin interface

I have been running DAViCal for some time now and, except for a little struggle during installation, it runs quite well. Only the admin interface, as several people on this list have noted, needs some heavy work done.

I started working on the stylesheets, applying the designs of my intranet site. But I soon came to realize that the interface itself faces some usability issues that cannot be resolved by design. So I sketched up a completely new design, specifically done for the admin interface. I tried to create a clean and intuitive interface which also works on different platforms from lynx to mobile devices (there is e.g. no "hover" event on touch-enabled devices).

There is already quite some work in this, so before I spend more time thinking about usable UIs I wanted to know if you are interested in this kind of work at all.

There is a downside to this though: (luckily) I am not a PHP programmer. So implementing this new design requires somebody working on the backend.

Right now the HTML of the admin interface is spread out over multiple PHP files, making anything other than small changes to it an awful lot of work. I would strongly recommend switching to a real template engine. (I hear many people are using Smarty in their PHP projects?)

On Sat, 2011-06-18 at 18:21 +0200, Bernhard Morgenstern wrote: > Hi, > > I have been running DAViCal for some time now and, except for a little > struggle during installation, it runs quite well. Only the admin > interface, as several people on this list have noted, needs some heavy > work done. > > I started working on the stylesheets, applying the designs of my > intranet site. But I soon came to realize that the interface itself > faces some usability issues that cannot be resolved by design. So I > sketched up a completely new design, specifically done for the admin > interface. I tried to create a clean and intuitive interface which also > works on different platforms from lynx to mobile devices (there is e.g. > no "hover" event on touch-enabled devices). > > Here is what I have come up with so far: > > http://byteflip.net/davical/userlist.html> > There is already quite some work in this, so before I spend more time > thinking about usable UIs I wanted to know if you are interested in this > kind of work at all. > > There is a downside to this though: (luckily) I am not a PHP programmer. > So implementing this new design requires somebody working on the backend. > > Right now the HTML of the admin interface is spread out over multiple > PHP files, making anything other than small changes to it an awful lot > of work. I would strongly recommend switching to a real template engine. > (I hear many people are using Smarty in their PHP projects?) > > I am looking forward to your feedback.

Hi Bernhard,

I like it.

It would be really nice if you could continue with this effort and when we have a new design I will be happy to put some time into implementing it.

On 06/18/2011 06:21 PM, Bernhard Morgenstern wrote: > Hi, > > I have been running DAViCal for some time now and, except for a little struggle during installation, it runs quite well. Only > the admin interface, as several people on this list have noted, needs some heavy work done. > > I started working on the stylesheets, applying the designs of my intranet site. But I soon came to realize that the interface > itself faces some usability issues that cannot be resolved by design. So I sketched up a completely new design, specifically > done for the admin interface. I tried to create a clean and intuitive interface which also works on different platforms from > lynx to mobile devices (there is e.g. no "hover" event on touch-enabled devices). > > Here is what I have come up with so far: > > http://byteflip.net/davical/userlist.html> > There is already quite some work in this, so before I spend more time thinking about usable UIs I wanted to know if you are > interested in this kind of work at all. > > There is a downside to this though: (luckily) I am not a PHP programmer. So implementing this new design requires somebody > working on the backend. > > Right now the HTML of the admin interface is spread out over multiple PHP files, making anything other than small changes to it > an awful lot of work. I would strongly recommend switching to a real template engine. (I hear many people are using Smarty in > their PHP projects?) > > I am looking forward to your feedback. > > > Best regards, > > Bernhard Morgenstern > > Hey that's cool, I would just reduce to maximum ( 32px, 48px ) the header. About the template engine, I would say that php is the template engine :-)

Keep going on this, and more as Andrew already accept to push that on the backend.